With the brat and Elmer disposed of, writer Warren Foster comes up with a lovely way to wrap up the cartoon. The scene pans over to a large egg, which the Easter Bunny picks up for delivery.
A fuse attached to the egg is revealed. Ah, ha! Now we know Bugs is going to get his revenge.
“It’s the suspense that gets me,” Bugs tells us (a little too quickly, in my opinion; as suspense hasn’t been allowed enough time to build). Then the blast. Cut to the aftermath.
Through the whole picture, the Easter Bunny has been telling Bugs “Remember, keep smiling!” (Stolen from Mel Blanc’s postman character on the Burns and Allen radio show). Now it’s Bugs’ turn, then he laughs as the iris closes.
For whatever reason, this cartoon was not released at Easter. It appeared in theatres starting June 28, 1947.
Probably the best time to release it to the public -- as far away from thinking about Easter as possible, given the cynical denouncement of the cartoon (sensing it out to theaters in March or April might have focused movie-goers on this being what Warner Brothers thinks of the holiday -- send it out in June and it's just Bugs blowing the Happy Postman up).
ReplyDeleteShort subjects in those days followed the same release pattern as feature films. They opened in large cities first and eventually worked their way down to small towns. By the time this cartoon reached the smallest theatrical venues, it may have been Easter 1948.
ReplyDeleteActually, Danny, I've found theatres that ran it over the Easter weekend in 1948 (the Victoria in Tarrytown, N.Y. and the Chester in Port Chester, N.Y.). Another showed it at Christmas time!
DeleteBut it's also true that some theatres released cartoons before the "official" dates in the trades; it depended on what the exchange had available.
The Jean Blanchard Bugs model may be his least attractive. Nose too big, eyes too small, lower lip too prominent, and body too husky. Although at least he's still a rabbit instead of the tall, thin man in a rabbit suit he became in the 1950s.
ReplyDeleteI've read a couple of times in old movie trade magazines that it took about three years for a film--feature or cartoon or short--to wind its way all the way through the theatrical distribution system, from its premiere to playing the tiniest theaters in the remotest corners of the USA, not to mention playing third and fourth run theaters.
ReplyDeleteSo no telling what time of year an Easter cartoon would be showing. Maybe that's why studios tended not to make very many holiday-themed cartoons.
My grandfather was raised in a remote corner of West Virginia and used to tell me that by the time a movie made its way to the local theater, it had long since come and gone from city theaters. Not to mention, he said, that prints they got were usually scratchy and splice-y and beat up.